Freeport profit falls on charges
Friday, October 17 2003 - 06:54 AM WIB
The New Orleans-based company reported third-quarter net income of US$55.9 million, or 33 cents a share, down from net income of $61.5 million, or 39 cents a share, in the year-ago quarter.
Excluding special items, the company posted earnings of 52 cents a share. Analysts had forecast earnings of 36 to 55 cents a share, with a consensus estimate of 48 cents a share, according to Reuters Research, a unit of Reuters Group Plc.
Third-quarter results included $37.6 million, or 19 cents a share, of net charges reflecting a change in accounting, early retirement of debt and repurchase of preferred stock.
Revenue rose sharply to $668.8 million from $538.7 million last year. Third-quarter sales volumes of 345 million pounds of copper exceeded estimates by about 25 million pounds. Gold sales of 763,500 ounces exceeded estimates by 120,000 ounces.
On Oct 9 Freeport announced that two workers were killed, five were injured and six workers were missing following a landslide in a small section of the company's massive Grasberg open pit mine in Indonesia.
The six missing workers are presumed dead, the company said on Thursday.
As a result of the incident, Freeport's PT-FI unit, owner of the Grasberg mine, revised its fourth quarter sales estimates to 200 million pounds of copper and 250,000 ounces of gold.
For the full year, Freeport said copper sales volumes should reach 1.33 billion pounds, 70 million pounds lower than estimated, while gold volumes are seen reaching 2.45 million ounces, 150,000 ounces below forecasts.
Shares of Freeport, which rose 35 percent during the third quarter, rose 61 cents, or 1.6 percent, to $37.80 Thursday morning on the New York Stock Exchange. (*)